Gap? Crap!

This week the graphic design world (yes, there really is one) was all in a kerfuffle over the news of the Gap's newly redesigned logo:

 

Here's the old logo alongside the new one. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old one; it had a certain class, was well designed and balanced, and best of all, it was instantly recognizable, which is pretty much a logo's only job.

The new one looks like the ad agency had three weeks to design it, so they blew it off and played XBox until the day of the presentation, then drew it up at a stop light on the way to the meeting. It's bland at best, and looks like a hundred other uninspired logos out there.

Some have suggested that this was all a carefully engineered plan on the Gap's part to generate publicity. Personally I don't believe it, but if it's true then they are the Lex Luthor of the design world. Pure evil genius.

There may be some truth to the "planned out" rumor though, as the Gap is now saying they've listened to the public's outrage and are encouraging designers to submit their own re-designs... for free, of course. Could this all have been an elaborately planned, Machiavellian scheme to get a free new logo?

Whatever the truth, I've decided that what's good for the Gap is good enough for me. Behold, the new logo for Bob Canada's BlogWorld!

By the way, this may be a stupid question, but does "Gap" actually mean anything? Is it a shortening of "generation gap?" An acronym perhaps, such as Great Apparel, Pronto? Anyone have any idea?

Update!

To no one's surprise, the Gap announced today (10/12/10) that "due to overwhelming public response," they're going back to the classic box logo. 

To me this is pretty much iron-clad evidence that the whole thing was nothing more than a ham-handed publicity stunt. Why would any sane company spend millions on a new corporate identity and then use it for less than a week? Supposedly the Gap's sales are way down this year, so what better way to draw attention to themselves (and hopefully generate sales) than with a highly publicized debacle such as this?